9 41 9 42: The secret of Apple’s recurring numbers

Filed under: Odds and ends

Calling John Locke! If you aren’t too busy on the Island, perhaps you can help us out with a little number mystery in Cupertino. John? Hello? You there?

For years, Apple has featured a recurring number in all of its iPhone ads and screen shots. The time in the status bar always reads 9:42. What’s more, since the debut of the iPad, the time in every iPad ad and screen shot always reads 9:41.

9:42 or 9:41. Every single time.

What can those specific times mean? Well since Locke isn’t answering my pleas for help (you’d think he was dead or something), I’ll just have to turn to another Jon. Apple’s iPhone number question has bugged Jon Manning, lead developer of Secret Lab, for years. Did the numbers have some sort of cosmic significance or were they just randomly selected by an Apple graphic designer with a thing for the 9:40ish time slot?

Jon dug around for answers, but after the search led nowhere, he eventually all but gave up on finding out what the numbers meant. Then, this past January, he began noticing the iPad’s reoccurring numbers and knew it couldn’t be random chance — these numbers did mean something. How would he find out what that something was, though?

TUAW9 41 9 42: The secret of Apple’s recurring numbers originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 12 Apr 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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